Posted on 11/22/2006 7:11:10 AM PST by goldstategop
While Americans celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, Saudi Arabians already had theirs over the weekend.
Tomorrow, we eat turkey. Over the weekend, the Saudis had us begging to eat crow over a man named Turki.
In an utter display of American weakness and shame, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers traveled to Saudi Arabia to apologize. Apologize for the American justice system and virtually everything else that America stands for.
Suthers went to Saudi Arabia to apologize for the conviction of Homaidan Al-Turki. Just before Labor Day, Al-Turki was sentenced to 27 years to life in a Colorado prison for keeping a slave and raping her, among other crimes.
Extremist Makeover: Homaidan Al-Turki & Wife Sarah, Before & After
Al-Turki, from a prominent Saudi religious family, was in Denver seeking his Ph.D. at Colorado University. This summer, he was convicted of sexually assaulting his Indonesian housekeeper, whom he and his wife--also convicted--kept as a slave. The Al-Turkis' abuse of this fellow Muslim went on for five years. They brought the 24-year-old woman to their home in Aurora, Colorado to serve as their cook, maid, nanny, and apparently "marital aid" (or in this case, also, "marital aide").
Mr. Al-Turki was convicted of felony counts of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft, and extortion, and misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment. He and his wife confiscated the woman's passport and kept her prisoner.
When it was time for Al-Turki--like any other American resident convicted of any crime--to ask for the mercy of the court, he chose a different tack: chutzpah. Al-Turki's statement to Judge Mark Hannen at sentencing was simply stunning:
Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit. The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution. No, upholding American laws against slavery, false imprisonment, and rape was the focal point of the prosecution. But that's something that our State Department--and apparently Colorado's chief law enforcement officer--now don't understand.
In an unprecedented move, the State Department flew Attorney General Suthers to Saudi Arabia to personally explain--and apologize for--Al-Turki's conviction to Saudi King Abdullah. Yes, U.S. taxpayers paid for this outrageous trip, though now Suthers is claiming Abdullah decided to reimburse the tab.
Suthers flew 19 hours to answer to leaders of another sovereign nation for enforcing the laws of Colorado. And apparently, he contracted a rapidly infectious case of Stockholm Syndrome during his stay, calling his pander-tour "the adventure of a lifetime."
Monday, he lectured the media that King Abdullah et al simply can't understand "that an Indonesian maid was considered a competent witness in our courts."
He also instructed that Abdullah and company were upset that they couldn't just buy their way out of it and pay off the maid. "They didn't understand how that wasn't possible here," Suthers said.
Suthers said that, under Saudi law, four eyewitnesses are needed to prove a rape case. Memo to Suthers: You are the Attorney General of Colorado, not Saudi Arabia. The four witnesses is taken from Islamic law, since Saudi Arabia is a theocracy. We are not. And that should be the end of the story.
Our "friends," the Saudis can't get over Al-Turki's conviction. Saudi state-run media, under King Abdullah's complete control, continues to portray the Saudi slavemaster in America as the victim of a judicial system biased against Muslims.
This is the same judicial system that failed to convict Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian, despite six-months worth of overwhelming evidence. The same judicial system that failed to convict Saudi national, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, of terrorism, despite his creation and oversight of terrorist-related websites calling for planes to fly into buildings . . . well before 9/11.
The same judicial system that agonized for over a year on the fate of Zacarias Moussaoui, and spared his life despite his prior knowledge of the impending murder of 3,000 Americans. The same judicial system that overturned--on the flimsiest of reasons--solid convictions of Al-Qaeda terrorists who comprised the Detroit terror cell. The same judicial system that has now indicted the valiant and innocent prosecutor of that terror cell. The same judicial system that overturned the NSA wiretaps of suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists.
2 Turkeys: Colorado Attorney General John Suthers & Fellow Cooked Bird
If anything that system has bent over backwards in favor of Muslims, to no avail in the Muslim world.
But that's not the point. Our judicial system is not perfect. It is, however, the fairest in the world. And we chose it. We need not apologize for it to anyone, much less the bloated self-anointed king of a totalitarian state. We need not apologize for it to the man from whose country 15 of 19 hijackers emanated.
We have many foreign nationals convicted in America, every single day. But American taxpayers don't send them to foreign lands to "explain" why they were found guilty.
The Saudis understand our legal system very well. They did not just discover America. The Saudi government pays for the best legal eagles for its nationals in America, when they are accused of a crime. The Saudis funded an absurd website comparing Al-Turki to the Statue of Liberty (strangely, the site's English version was removed). This sudden summons of a top American law enforcement official to "explain" is absurd and degrading. More absurd is that U.S. officials complied and went along with the act.
Can you imagine the U.S. sending a state Attorney General to explain to Hitler why we allow Blacks and Jews to serve as witnesses in our courts and why enslaving and raping them for five years is a crime?
In those days, America did not apologize for being a just society. These days, America just apologizes.
Colorado Attorney General Suthers is the latest emblem of those endless apologies to those who hate us. He can write his political epitaph with it.
Tomorrow, it's doubtful Suthers will be eating turkey like the rest of us. He's still digesting all the Saudi crow he consumed.
Why don't you get your head out of your a$$ just long enough to actually read what really happened at the link provided above. Are you so dense to not see that the original screed that began this thread is a tissue of lies?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Which is, of course, precisely what Suthers told the Saudis. And yet your undies are still all twisty ... clearly the actual details of the case don't matter to you. That's not an ad hominem attack, it's simply a statement of fact, based on your posts.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
I'd call it a reasonable diplomatic move, in which Suthers appears to have done very well. I know how galling that must be to a keyboard kommando like yourself.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
The link below is from the U.S. State Department and describes the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61698.htm
Happens pretty regularly, especially in death penalty cases.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
I think they owe us a lifetime of favors and good will for Gulf War I. Though the U.S. liberated Kuwait the thrust of the whole campaign was saving the Saudis and their oil.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"In an unprecedented move, the State Department flew Attorney General Suthers to Saudi Arabia to personally explain--and apologize for--Al-Turki's conviction to Saudi King Abdullah."
This is an example of why the policies and arrogance of our own State Department is the biggest threat to our national security. By its own self-importance, the department holds itself unaccountable to Congress, the President, even the Secretary of State; not to mention expressed demands of the electorate. This insanity has been going on for decades and every S of S has refused to do (or could not do) anything about it. If Condi Rice (or any S of S) can’t control (or condones) such continuing incompetence and dangerous policies of the State Department, she shouldn’t head that or any other department.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Ridiculous.
When are Americans going to stop apologizing for everything they are and for everything others are NOT?
The trip was paid for partly by the U.S. State Department and partly by King Abdullah. Suthers didn't have a final tally but said no Colorado taxpayer money was spent.
Colorado taxpayers don't help to pay for the U.S. State Department?
This quote in the article says a lot about the differences between US and Saudi culture.
"One of the brothers of the defendant that I had met sat through the trial and they simply cannot understand that a jury can give credibility to an Indonesian maid," Suthers said. "And the only possible explanation that is some sort of anti-Muslim bias."
Sad that Suthers had to explain to these people that, in the US, even lowly, dirty, foreign maids have a natural right not to be enslaved and raped.
I simply posted that article because it was conveniently found. The facts presented can be found in plenty of other sources. Schlussel is simply lying.
Colorado taxpayers don't help to pay for the U.S. State Department?
His point, which I'm sure you understand, is that the trip was not paid for directly by the State of Colorado.
This is a gross misrepresentation of what Suthers did. He wasn't apologizing, just helping out American-Saudi diplomacy. al-Turki is the son of a prominent imam who runs one of the major mosques in either Mecca or Medina. I don't think we could have just ignored this dispute, and perhaps we'll even give a few people some clues about how our justice system works better than Sharia.
58 posts and no pic of Debbie yet? grrrr....
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